Systems for and methods for in situ optimization of tunable light emitting diode sources are disclosed herein. During operation, the systems and methods obtain real-time feedback from an image sensor, and that feedback is used to tune the tunable LEDs. By tuning the tunable LEDs, the best values for the LED spectral output can be selected based on the feedback from the image sensor, and an image with improved contrast is obtained. Alternatively, the amount of time to obtain an image with acceptable contrast is reduced.